“I’m sorry to interrupt, but could you direct me to the restroom?”

“Go back the way we came, down the hallway, and it’s the first door on the left.” She was staring at me in disbelief, as were the other guests.

“Thanks.” I gave an apologetic smile to the others. “Sorry. Couldn’t be helped.”

I hurried out of the room and made it to the bathroom. I closed the door and prayed for sufficient soundproofing.

A few minutes later I felt much, much better. I flushed, turned on the fan, and washed my hands. My face was covered with sweat, so I turned on the faucet and splashed some water on it. I looked terrible. I wiped my face off on the towel, and discovered that it was the softest, most heavenly towel I’d ever felt in my life. I wiped my face again. I was in love.

I noticed that the first flush had only been about eighty percent successful, so I gave it a second one. My bliss from the towel suddenly transformed into raw, heart-stopping terror as the water began to move in exactly the opposite direction that I desired.

“No…no…” I said, clenching my fists as the water continued to rise. “Please, no. Stop…stop…”

It didn’t stop. Two more inches until overflow.

I frantically grabbed a bath towel from the rack and threw it around the base of the toilet. The water was still moving upward…upward… forever upward…

“Oh dear God and all that is holy please, please, I will never ask you for another favor ever again if you do this one thing for me, just let the water stop, that’s all I ask.”

The water reached the seating portion of the toilet.

I cringed and awaited the moment of truth. The pounding in my temples was unbearable.

The water ceased its horrific ascent. The level remained steady for several seconds, and then began to sink. I almost wept with relief.

And then I heard a scream.

I immediately rushed to the bathroom door and tried to pull it open, but it wouldn’t budge. I made sure it was unlocked on my side, and then tugged on it as hard as I possibly could. It wouldn’t open.

“Patricia!” I shouted. “Patricia, are you okay?”

No response. Suddenly the door popped open, and I stumbled backwards, almost falling but regaining my balance just in time. A narrow strip of wood that had obviously been wedged under the doorknob dropped to the floor with a crack. I rushed out of the bathroom, down the hallway, and into the dining room.

Patricia and her four guests were still seated around the table, just where I’d left them.

The only difference was, all of them were missing their heads.

Chapter 4

I SLAMMED a hand over my mouth and felt my knees go weak. Being sick from bad salmon gook was nothing compared to seeing five decapitated bodies all at once. I staggered away from the sight, doing my best not to pass out.

I bit the side of my cheek to force my senses back into sharp focus. The killer had to be close. Heads didn’t just fall off by themselves without a darn good reason.

The front door slammed shut.

I rushed out of the dining room, down the hallway into the foyer, and threw the front door open. I quickly looked around the front yard. No sign of anyone.

No way in hell was I going out there. Maybe Patricia and the others had their eyes closed and maybe they were distracted by their séance babbling, but still…five heads neatly severed without them even moving out of their chairs…

I shut the door, locked it, and began searching for the nearest phone.

I SAT ON the couch in the living room while cops swarmed the house. Tony and Bruce Frenkle were also there, Tony on the couch next to me, Bruce in the easy chair.

“You certainly do get yourself into some peculiar situations,” Tony remarked.

“Yeah, I’d say five missing heads qualifies as peculiar,” I muttered.

“They aren’t missing,” Bruce pointed out. “They’re on the floor.”

“No, two of them are on the table,” corrected Tony. “Well, they were before the one rolled off.”

I shook my head in annoyance. “You two are evil incarnate, I hope you realize that.”

“Just trying to help you cope,” said Bruce.

“Yeah, well, you can help me cope by letting me go home.”

“We still have more questions.”

“You’re not asking questions. You’re making jokes about the heads.”

“Those weren’t jokes,” said Tony. “Those were observations. Joking would be insensitive at a time like this. So, Andy, tell us again why you were here.”

“Don’t call me Andy.”

“Sorry. Andrew.”

“Patricia Nesboyle was going to pay me six hundred dollars to come to this party. She thought that one of her friends was going to kill her, and that if I were around it wouldn’t happen.”

“Was Patricia the head on the table or one of the ones on the floor?”

“On the table.”

“So she’s the one that rolled off,” said Bruce. “It was a man’s head that was still there when I left.”

I told them the whole story again. Because I was in a lousy mood, I made sure I was as disturbingly graphic as possible about my adventure in the bathroom.

After about half an hour of questioning, they told me I could go home. “So am I a suspect?” I asked, getting up from the couch.

The Frenkle brothers exchanged a surprised look. “ You? ” asked Tony. “Andrew, buddy, I hate to be blunt, but we’re looking for somebody clever.”

“Bite me,” I said.

“See, now, the individual responsible for these murders would have a much more clever retort than ‘bite me.’”

“I’m going home.”

As they walked me out the door, I heard a thump from the dining room. I really didn’t want to know what it was.

BRUCE CALLED me the next morning. They hadn’t found any fingerprints or any other sign of the decapitator. However, they had found a bottle of arsenic in Malcolm’s jacket pocket, so apparently he’d been the one who wanted to kill Patricia, for what it was worth.

Because of my traumatic experience, it didn’t seem like a good day to go out and look for a job. I also didn’t think it was a wise idea to be scanning the classified ads in my weakened mental condition. It did, however, seem like a perfect day to sit on the couch and watch television, perhaps something educational.

Around the sixth extramarital affair, Helen came downstairs in her bathrobe and sat down on the end of the couch, propping her legs in my lap. “How’re you holding up?” she asked.

“Not too bad. I do keep checking my neck to make sure it’s still there, but I think that’s probably a normal reaction.”

“Probably. You haven’t had such a great week, have you?”

I shrugged. “I’m getting in some good TV viewing.”

“Well, I’m going to call off work and send Theresa and Kyle to stay overnight with my parents. It’s going to be just you and me. We’ll go out to dinner, then come back and relax.” She smiled.

“Relax in what kind of way?”

“The best way.”

“Oooh, I think I can work that into my schedule.” I picked up an imaginary daytime planner. “Let’s see, I think I’ve got some free time in between being mauled by a wild boar and getting carried away by a hurricane. Sound good to you?”

“Sounds wonderful. How about we make reservations at Hugo’s?”

Hugo’s was one of the fanciest restaurants in Chamber, a restaurant of such high caliber that the salad fork was a different size than the dinner fork. “Can we afford that?” I asked.

“Of course not.”

“Works for me.”

AS WE DROVE to Hugo’s, we set the ground rules for the evening. There would be no discussion of work, children, kidnappings, or quintuple decapitations. Over salad, we discussed politics for about twenty-three seconds, upcoming movies we wanted to see for about forty-one seconds, and sex for about eight minutes, fifteen seconds. We both agreed that it was an activity well worth participating in that evening.